


Sunflower Seeds

by sawbones



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25972375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawbones/pseuds/sawbones
Summary: An easy mission goes sideways and nearly takes Caveira with it.
Relationships: Morowa "Clash" Evans/Taina "Caveira" Pereira
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Sunflower Seeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grain_Crain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grain_Crain/gifts).



> For Grunkle, long ago. <3

The room was too small for the big personalities in it, six elite soldiers and the egos that came with them. The mood was tense but not heavy, the kind of keen-edged effervescence of pre-game locker rooms; the mission statement hadn’t actually used the phrase ‘walk in the park’, but it may as well have. 

Morowa shifted from foot to foot as she readjusted her grip on her CCES, finding it hard to stay focused on Campbell’s overly-thorough rundown. The movement was enough to catch Taina’s attention, dark eyes glittering in the low light as she leaned out of the shadows on the far side of the room. Morowa met her gaze and held it; Taina’s expression was flat, unaffected, but she gave a subtle nod of her head that may as well have been a screaming hello from someone like her. 

Morowa might have smiled if Campbell hadn’t jerked her out of the moment by saying her name, politely demanding her attention for the task at hand. She squared her shoulders, stood up a little straighter.

“You’re going to be our noisemaker. When you get the signal, start putting pressure on the front door and pull aggro. That will give us a little breathing space to flank on the east and west corridors. Smoke and myself will pull left, Mute and Valk pull right. We’ve done an electro-thermal sweep of the building for bombs and bodies, not much to write home about. Minimal trapping, and they don’t have the numbers to hold off, so do what you do best and we’ll be in before it gets too hot.”

Morowa nodded, and Campbell seemed satisfied. A standard maneuver, one they’d run a dozen times or more. Simple but effective, assuming-- well, assuming a lot of things. The building’s integrity, the incompetence of their enemies, the equipment, so much ‘right place, right time’ even on such a basic sortie. She wasn’t worried. They weren’t even White Masks.

“Caveira, this is where you come in. Once we’ve got their attention, you slip in through the north window, pick off any stragglers, and start securing. Once we’ve rounded up the rest, you and Smoke are on perimeter checks while the rest of us dig in and wait for extraction. Got it?”

Taina didn’t say anything, simply checked the sights balance on her Luison, taken as an affirmative. There was a murmur of agreement around the room as Campbell gave the signal to shape up and ship out, the sound of gun checks and strap adjustments following the boots down the corridor. 

Morowa hung back, let the rest go ahead. When Taina moved to ease past her, she reached out and caught her by the wrist, the _ wait  _ slipping out reflexively. Taina froze in place, visibly bristling. She turned to Morowa with an expectant, guarded look and Morowa-- Morowa couldn’t think of a single thing to say that didn’t sound stupid or patronizing, or both. 

“Happy hunting,” she said eventually, because  _ be careful, stay safe, _ would have pulled a sneer out of Taina she would do anything to avoid. She didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t for her to turn her hand in Morowa’s grip slowly, carefully, and ghost her fingers against the inside of her wrist. A thank you pressed to the no-man’s land between glove and sleeve, or a wish, or a reassurance? 

Taina’s not-smile was cryptic and her eyes warm. Then she was gone.

\--

It went just as planned, until it didn’t. They had synced their watches and split up, Morowa on her own and largely unconcerned about it. Distracted, maybe, but only a little. She waited and waited, crouched behind her folded-down shield in the shadows of the southern hallway. She could hear tangos up ahead, sitting behind a short barricade of overturned tables, right where they were supposed to be. They were sharing a smoke and lamenting about nobody remembering to bring cards with them. Bored, apparently. Not for long.

The buzz from her wrist came exactly when it was expected, and Morowa closed her eyes, took a steadying breath. Everyone was in position. It was show time.

There was a kind of irony in it, she supposed as she rolled the tension out her shoulders and stood up. One of her talents - possibly her greatest talent - was being able to disappear. Maybe not like Taina, but years of being able to melt into a crowd, head down, hood up, gone like she was never there. It was the one thing Six had never asked from her. Six wanted sparks, wanted fury. 

Morowa smirked. She was pretty good at that too.

The whine of the CCES’s charge slithered through the quiet, three heads snapping towards her direction. They wouldn’t be able to see her yet as she advanced, only the shivering arcs of blue-white that licked across her shield in the darkness. Their confusion was palpable, a hanging hesitation before someone had the presence to scramble for a gun.

She pulled herself in as the first bullet glanced off her shield, then another. Most were lost to the crumbling plaster walls around her. She got a shot off, missed too before she slowed down and picked her target - not fatal, probably, but she didn’t need it to be. She wasn’t pushing up yet, she was there to keep their eyes where they needed to be. Another two men darted out of the room behind the barricade, one of them grabbing the man who had been shot and the other adding to the suppressive fire. 

It was hot. A little too hot, if Morowa was honest. The commslink on her wrist was a steady black screen and it was making her worry; the flankers should have been through by then. Had she missed it in the gun-fire? Had something gone wrong? Morowa angled herself a little closer to the wall so she could radio from cover; she had a finger at her ear when an explosion went off, close enough to shake dust from the ceiling tiles.

Morowa was staggered by it, but managed to recover; the targets were as distracted as she was, seemingly unsure whether to stay or go. There was a brief argument she could barely make-out between the shots, and then nothing; they had pulled back into the room, abandoning the corridor. 

Static crackled in her earpiece, making her jolt.

“ _ \--erator down, in need of immediate med--kshh--est corridor not clear, I repeat, unable to reach--” _

It was Campbell’s voice, urgent and crackling over a damaged mic. Either he or Seamus had been hurt and they hadn’t been able to clear their corridor, now they were either pinned or extracting. The bogies had either figured out they were there, or it had been trapped.

_ “--ull back, all teams pull bac--” _

_ “East wing, pulling back.” _

That was Mark. Morowa touched her ear piece as she began to disengage, not once turning her back. 

“South wing, pulling back”

The fourth voice was absent for long enough to make Morowa’s stomach twist, before the channel opened again.

_ “I can see it.”  _

Her voice was warm sand, even through the mic. 

“Caveira, pull back,” Morowa said, trying not to shout, “You have no support.”

_ “Negative,” _ was the response, and Morowa knows Taina was on the hunt now. She wouldn’t listen.  _ “Keep them busy, the package is mine.” _

She swore, loudly and with all the feeling she could muster, but she was already moving. If Seamus and Campbell had been neutralised, most of the men in that part of the building would be coming for her and the other flankers, trying to catch whoever else was breaching. Taina would be smack bang in the middle of it and-- and even if the targets couldn’t shoot for shit and even if Taina was like a ghost when she needed to be, the idea of it suddenly made Morowa very, very scared,

By the time she came back to herself, Morowa had already vaulted the make-shift barricade and crashed into the room behind. The man she had shot from earlier was propped against a wall, unconscious; glass shattered in the room to her left just as someone stepped into the doorframe on the right, and she was too slow to twist away before the bullet grazed her bicep. Searing pain drilled down her arm, but she bit back her scream and charged him with her CCES roaring, leaving him slumped with his injured comrade.

More shouting, more firing; the familiar tight shots of the Luison barely able to be heard beneath it. There were six men in the room, only two turned around when Morowa came in. She shocked one, shot the other in the chest and a third in the back. The rest were focused on Taina, hunkered behind a desk on the far side but shooting with such ferocity the men were afraid to leave their own cover. 

Morowa’s shield was recharging and her finger squeezed on an empty trigger; one of the men turned and lunged at her, grabbing the edge of the CCES. They struggled for a moment, her injured arm buckling just as a flashbang rolled to a stop at their feet. She closed her eyes just in time, but the light was still painful through her lids. The man lost his grip and staggered, and Morowa was able to slam him in the side of the head before he could recover.

By the time he dropped, the other two were face down on the floor. One had a knife in his back, just below his neck, the other was groaning but not moving. Morowa couldn’t afford time to catch her breath, and she all but tripped over her own feet to get to the bullet-hole riddled desk. Taina was sat up against it, her legs splayed out before her. She was breathing heavily, her warpaint smudge with sweat. She had her Luison in one hand, the other gripping a grey briefcase with bloodied handles. 

“Package secured,” she said. Her grin was feral and shaky. It sounded like speaking took a lot of effort.

“Fuck you,” Morowa spat back as she tossed the CCES aside and dropped to her knees. She pushed the briefcase off of Taina’s lap, let it clatter to the floor without a thought. Taina had been shot in the stomach, blackish blood shining wet on her shirt. Her grin turned into a grimace as Morowa braced her hand against the wound and began to apply pressure, the adrenaline apparently not enough to numb the pain entirely, “This was  _ fucking _ sloppy.”

Taina didn’t respond - maybe she couldn’t. She put her hand over Morowa’s, both slick with blood, and squeezed a little. Her blinks were coming slower, her breathing shallower. Morowa was only half aware of radioing for help, but she couldn’t remember what she said and she wasn’t listening to the response. All she could focus on was the hand on hers, and the chill of cooling blood as it slowly let go.

\--

The local anaesthetic didn’t stop the gash on Morowa’s arm from aching miserably as she stood up and rolled down her sleeve over the fresh dressing. She didn’t bother putting her jacket back on as she gathered her things, assuming she could leave. Doc pushed himself back on his roller chair, depositing his gloves and the old bandages in a pedal bin by the door.

“It’s not healing as fast as I would like, but it is healing.” he said, moving to the sink to briefly wash his hands. “Thank you for coming back for your check-up, by the way. You would be amazed how many operatives I have to practically drag in here by the ear, if at all.”

“I don’t think I’d be that amazed,” Morowa said. She hadn’t been with Rainbow for long, but it was long enough to know some of them didn’t have their head screwed on right. Ordinarily she might have been one of them, but it was her shooting arm and she didn’t want to take a risk. 

Besides, it gave her an excuse to hang around the medical wing for a while. 

“Well, you might be a little too old for a lollipop, so how about the next best thing?” Doc asked, and it was easy to forget how handsome he was when his smile was genuine. “She’s awake. She asked to see you.”

Morowa stilled, tried not to let the anticipation show on her face, or the unfamiliar nerves that came with it. Taina had undergone two surgeries in the past few days: the first to remove the bullet as soon as the air ambulance had landed, the second to repair what damage they could once her condition had stabilised. Morowa hadn’t been allowed to see her in between, no-one had. 

“She’s okay?” 

She had asked for Morowa?

“Knowing Taina, she’ll be back on her feet in a couple of weeks - assuming she follows the recovery plan, of course,” Doc said, settling back at his desk. “Visitors will keep her grounded. Try not to get her too excited, she does need to rest after all. Shall we say ten minutes?”

Morowa’s tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth as she lingered by the door she’d already opened, but she managed to unstick it after a moment of dumb staring, “Yeah, ‘course. I-- thank you, Doc.”

Doc smiled again, and waved her off in genial dismissal. 

\--

The door to Taina’s room was open, but Morowa knocked anyway - lightly, in case she was asleep. It was hard to tell at first, laying as she was with her head turned away, half-propped up in bed, her hands curled loosely on her stomach. Morowa had half-expected her to be lost among a jungle-vine tangle of wires and tubes and beeping machine, but the room was quiet and she had a single IV bag hung up beside her.

Taina roused slowly, whether from sleep or thoughts. Her golden skin had a grey cast to it that worried Morowa, but her eyes were liquid-dark and sharp as ever. They immediately found the edge of the bandage peeking from beneath Morowa’s sleeve, and her brow gathered in a scowl.

“You’re hurt,” she said, presumably annoyed Doc hadn’t told her.

“Just a graze,” Morowa grabbed the chair by the door, turned it around so she could straddle it with her arms resting on the back. It was comfortable, but more importantly it gave her something to do with her hands. “Missed everything important. Forget me, though- what about you? What’s the damage report?”

“Just a graze,” Taina said levelly, “Missed everything important.”

Morowa all but rolled her eyes. She shouldn’t have expected anything else. To say Taina was reticent would be an understatement. “Well, I guess that makes three of us then. Doc told me they were able to save Seamus’ leg. Might be back on active duty as early as the spring.”

They were so used to drones, laser grids, and other sophisticated devices that it was easy to forget the effectiveness of an easily-missed hand grenade on a tripwire until a reminder was served. They had over-estimated their opponents, and ironically it had been the mission’s downfall.

Taina nodded. Her relief was apparent, but she didn’t have anything to say - or at least, what she had to say seemed difficult. Her fists clenched in her lap. She dipped her chin, but met Morowa’s eye and held it.

“You were right. It was sloppy. So--” Taina looked away, but only for a second. “Thank you… for not leaving me behind. I would have deserved it.”

Morowa hadn’t been expecting a thank you - she thought it was obvious one wasn’t needed - so she wasn’t sure what to say. It would be easy to embarrass Taina. Would she not do the same if the positions were reversed? It’s what it meant to be a part of something like Rainbow - or at least that’s how Morowa rationalised it. 

She cared a lot about her team, but she cared enough about Taina to be stupid about it. It would be a long time before she could say that out loud, for both their sakes, but she didn’t want to wait any longer.

“It’s fine. Buy me a drink some time.” she shrugged. Tained didn’t exactly smile but she looked amused enough. It made Morowa bold. “You’re laughing, but what if I’m serious?”

“I’d be amazed you finally had the balls to ask me,” Taina said, and if Morowa didn’t know better, she would have said there was colour rising in her sallow cheeks, “ _ If  _ you were being serious.”

She bit her lip to stop herself from grinning. It was an effort to stay casual, but she was used to it, “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. You’ve got a couple weeks to decide which you’d prefer.”

“I don’t need a couple weeks. The drink, on the other hand, might help.” Taina said. She paused for a moment. “Do you really think it’s a good idea?”

“Fuck no, but since when has that stopped us before? Any of us?” Morowa said, with a gesture to let Taina know that  _ us _ clearly included her. When it was met with a scowl, she dropped her hands, “Alright, maybe too soon to crack jokes, but...I’m not pulling your leg. Not every mistake has to be a regret.”

There was a beat of silence, which took Morowa by surprise. Taina’s scowl softened until she was simply looking at Morowa, her fingers twisting in the blankets. Things were always awkward where she was involved but… not like this. They were hesitating, both of them, not sure whether they were reaching for a live wire or each other’s open hand. It was unfamiliar, but not entirely unpleasant, the effervescent nervousness a million miles apart from the adrenaline of gunfire and hand grenades. 

Morowa realised she was staring roughly at the same time Taina did, and she stood up so fast that she nearly knocked her chair over.

“I should probably head off before Doc…”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Taina said, and honestly, she was probably right. When it came to Doc, she got away with things other operators wouldn’t dream of. Still, she didn’t move to stop Morowa any more than Morowa moved to stay. “You won’t make me wait until that drink to see you again, will you?”

“ _ I _ wouldn’t dare,” Morowa said, “Might even bring flowers next time.”

“For me or the room?”

“For you.” It was reflexive, too earnest for the teasing tone. So much for playing it casual. “Anything, for you.”

“Anything?” Taina repeated. “After our mission, I could believe that.”

Morowa’s heart felt like it was in her throat, but she was ready; she had taken that first step and it had brought her right to the edge of...something that was as intimidating as it was amazing.  _ Someone _ . It was funny how a close call had that effect on people; she never thought it would be her. She was ready to keep going. She just needed Taina to meet her there.

“Sunflowers,” Taina said eventually. She smiled, and there was no hidden meaning, no secret edge. Just Taina. “Bring me sunflowers.”


End file.
